I Could Probably Save you A lot of Money on Your Car Insurance Too

Last week while I was cleaning the bathroom, the vacuum cleaner didn't work. Which, was not a good thing because I am lazy and don't believe in actually washing the floors (shh...don't tell). I usually just vacuum quick to get the big pieces picked up and wipe down every...year or so. John looked at the vacuum and couldn't find anything wrong with it - but also couldn't make it work either. Big discussions were held and different possible solutions were evaluated by the team.

Later in the week, our electric toothbrush started to fade. Which is a bummer because...well it is how we brush our teeth. This also might make us lazy because we prefer to not actually do any work while maintaining our personal hygiene. However, we do brush. Most of the time. But! We were in danger of having to manually brush our teeth with our very own arms and locate manual toothbrushes in the cabinets under the sink which would have required: time and effort. So, it might have come to not brushing for the one of us who is very lazy (hint: it is me). So, again big discussions were held and different possible solutions were evaluated by the team.

This week, I was starting to pick up in the bathroom and I brought in our HUGE vacuum cleaner to try and get the bigger chunks of dust bunny up off of the floor. On the way into the bathroom, I got distracted by cat hair in the hallway and plugged in to take care of it right away. However, when I got to the bathroom, the vacuum no longer worked. At all. At this point I became suspicious and took the vacuum back to the hallway, where it still worked (but the cord wasn't long enough to reach the bathroom). Glowing with my own brilliance and problem solving skills, I took the smaller vaccum cleaner to the hallway to test it out and AHA! I fixed it!

I did a little dance in the hallway, celebrating the fact we wouldn't have to spend a lot of money replacing my favorite little vacuum cleaner. Until I realized that we probably had faulty wiring or bad outlets. Which was going to either burn our house down (expensive to replace), require 12123423345235324 hours of repair work by John (also expensive, time consuming), or 12 hours of repair work by an electrician (expensive). So, I called John at work with the good news/bad news scenario. John, was of course, amazed at my brilliance (even though he didn't say so at the time) and money saving capablitlies. After carefully analyzing the situation, he revealed his own brilliance by suggesting I press the black button on our bathroom outlet labeled "Reset". When I did, the whole world got a little happier.

The vacuum cleaners (both) work in the bathroom when plugged in. The charging light on the electric toothbrush is back on again and the toothbrush is at full power.

No money was spent fixing either the vacuum cleaner, the toothbrush or our wiring. I am so awesome - want me to come to your house and save you some money?

PS I know it is lame that we have 2 vacuums, but there is a reason for it. Long story, not very interesting though.

PPS The cell phone issue is being fixed. With all the money saved from the vacuum/toothbrush situation, we are replacing the phones. New cell phones will arrive within the week. Will let you know when the number reversal will take place again. Can't stand John's phone. The phone book makes no sense. How am I supposed to find my parents' numbers when they are under their given names, not Mom and Dad?

PSA

Here is a quick announcement.

My phone is not working well and slowly different parts of it are not working at all. John and I have traded phones so I can have a reliable phone during the day while he is at work. If you are trying to get ahold of me, please call John's number. If you don't have that number, you should e mail me. If you don't have my e mail address, you probably don't need my phone number either. However, if you feel strongly that I would like you to contact me, you may leave me a comment and I'll think about it.

20ish Week Appointment

We had our almost-20-week appointment this morning with our OB. Twenty weeks is somewhat significant because it does mark the halfway point of the pregnancy. She is happy with how we're doing and was even happier to hear that I am feeling lots of movement every day now. In fact, John was able to feel movement from the outside for the first time yesterday. This is about a month before he could feel anything with William, so we're all excited about that!

Everything continues to go well and there aren't any concerns on the doctors part. I had a largish weight gain this month which means the rest of the left over Halloween candy is now going with John to work. I have made it my mission to gain less weight with this one than with William's pregnancy. Although I was able to loose most of it, a 60 pound weight gain isn't pretty. Unfortunately, as with William's pregnancy, I have to some holidays make it through which will make it more challenging. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's, our 7th anniversary, Valentine's Day and my 30th birthday all will happen before this baby is born - and there is a lot of food in there that I'm going to want to eat.

So, on to the theories about the gender of this baby.

My Theory & Rational

I am fairly certain this baby is a boy. Very early on, I didn't really have any "feelings" about the baby's gender. At roughly 15 weeks, I started "feeling" like this baby was a boy. Now for the logical explanation. Hah! I fooled you! What are you thinking? Logical and rational? Not words you would find to describe me ever! However, for the record, I felt very strongly that William was a boy when I was pregnant with him. I was sure of it. When the ultrasound revealed that he was a "he", I wasn't even really surprised. I just knew he was a boy.

I am fairly certain this baby is another boy and out of all my pregancies so far my track record is 100%. I've been right about the gender 100% of the time. So there.

My Interpretation of John's Theory & Rational

Now, I have to warn you that John is not writing this. This is totally, 100% my interpretation of what I think he thinks. So, it really isn't that accurate. But, you can keep reading if you don't have anything better to do.

I knew you would keep reading.

In general, John has learned not to argue with my intuitions about things, because I am right about things a lot of the time. Random things like which lane is faster on the highway, which neighbor is experiencing marriage problems, and what he actually wants to eat for dinner. Oh, and that William was a boy. So, John is mostly going along with my "feeling" that it is a boy even though there is no basis in fact or scientific proof either way. He has come a long way.

However, John has always wanted a daughter. And at the ultrasound, John spied something that gave him hope that Daddy's Little Girl might be coming. When the technician performing the ultrasound was looking at the baby's feet, he noticed that the second toe on the baby's foot was longer than the big toe. My second toe is also longer than my big toe. William's big toe is his longest as is John's (this was pointed out during the ultrasound we had during William's pregnancy). So, John has also entered a guess into the pool based on the length of toes. John is again, hoping for his Little Girl.

**I feel the need to include this disclaimer. We are thrilled to be pregnant and will be thankful and happy about a healthy baby of either gender. In fact, the gender of this baby was so unimportant to the big picture of things here, we didn't even bother to find out which flavor it is.**

Some Comparisons

Here are two pictures I took a long time ago to show you, but just haven't yet. Because I am lame.

Because the last picture I took didn't show the new TV we purchased to scale...here is what we were watching TV on before compared to our new TV. It was a little scary at first, all the big faces in our bedroom.
And because I am nerd who gets excited about these kinds of things. William and Newbaby now have matching PJ's. I plan on dressing these kids identically until they start to complain regardless of gender. Maybe even if they complain - it is good to be in charge.

Election Day

John and I both voted. Did you?

PS I have our maps printed and colored pencils sharpened so we can track the states as they come in...weeeee fun times at the Heidt House tonight! Hopefully we don't need the erasable colored pencils this year. We used up all ours during the last election...

It's a......

Surprise! John and I were so excited this morning to go to our "big" ultrasound and really get a good look at NewBaby. We were not planning on finding out the gender of NewBaby during the appointment. However, we were not planning on finding out with William either and curiosity got the best of me that day. Today I held it together and managed very well through the appointment. The ultrasound tech even told me to look away while she examined an area that would have given the gender away....and I didn't peek. John says he didn't either.

While it was fun and exciting to actually get to see NewBaby for more than a minute at a time, the ultrasound technician made the experience totally different. This one was all business. She explained what she was doing and what she was looking at without stopping for any extras. Bummer.

We left William's ultrasound 2 years ago with roughly 15 pictures. Today we left with 2 - NewBaby is already neglected! Here are the only pictures we got:

Baby's head is on the right side of the screen, the spine and lower body is on the left.
The face is in the center of the picture and the body (with ribs) is on the left side of the frame.


PS Sometime this week I'll update you on our gender theories. You won't want to miss it!

There was a Farmer...

Who had a dog and Bingo was his name-o!

For some reason this year, we are super popular and have been invited to at least 6 different Halloween/Fall type parties over the last few weeks. We weren't able to go to all of them, but I think I am officially Halloweened out. This weekend was a party that were we able to attend schedule wise - although we considered staying home because the invite threatened if we didn't arrive in our own costume, one would be provided. So, here is what we came up with:

The farmer and his dog

Mama and her pumpkin - very unoriginal as I was a pumpkin when I was pregnant with William also. (PS If you tried out the link- WOW what a difference ten weeks and about twenty extra pounds makes!)

William was fascinated with the pumpkin on my belly. He could not be distracted away from the eyes, nose and mouth - followed by an exclamation "Mama pumpkin!"
When we got home, I finally let William have some fun with the pumpkin face. I think he would have sat here all night rearranging the nose, eyes and mouth.
And just because it is funny....running away from Daddy.

This Halloween party was worth the effort though. Very cool decorations and food. Marinara sauce in a fountain is very...red and bubbly. Quite the sight.